People seem to “get” that the National Broadband Plan is a “call to action,” said FCC broadband plan Executive Director Blair Levin at a Brookings Institution event Wednesday. The team set out to write a document that was both “visionary and practical,” and “the kind of advice companies would get if they had millions of dollars on the line,” he said. Levin believes the FCC achieved that. Everyone who’s reacted to the plan likes “large pieces” of it, which is good because Levin hoped people would love 80 percent, be indifferent to 10 percent and hate 10 percent, he said. Relatively little has been said about the national purposes section of the report, he said, but Levin expects that part will have the most material impact 10 years from now. Quick action is most likely to occur on recommendations the team made to the FCC, said Levin. “On the key issues affecting the FCC -- USF and intercarrier [compensation] -- there was a fair amount of acceptance of the need to go forward and that there is a framework now to go forward.” And President Barack Obama has explicitly supported the FCC’s proposals on spectrum and public safety, he said. “Congressional action [is] always more difficult to predict,” but the team “designed the plan so that the core recommendations could be done without Congress for the most part,” Levin said. Broadband Plan General Manager Erik Garr hopes the level of discussion on facts and outcomes at the commission continues. He described the broadband plan proceeding as “the most open and transparent planning process we could physically do.” The team “wanted to walk the walk” and be an example of an effective open government, said Phoebe Yang, general counsel for the team. The team worked nonstop until the end, said Levin. “For the last 75 days, the four of us have pretty much worked every single day.”
House members of both parties support privacy legislation, Neil Fried, the Commerce Committee’s minority counsel, said at a Broadband Breakfast event Tuesday. But Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., of the Communications Subcommittee has yet to share a discussion draft of his bill. Republicans “would welcome the opportunity to work with him,” but “it’s hard to do until we actually have a draft legislation in front of us,” Fried said. The Senate has tried to pass privacy legislation but failed, noted Danny Sepulveda, an aide to Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., of the Senate Communications Subcommittee. “The difficulty of privacy legislation is that it cuts across so much jurisdiction,” he said. “There really is no way to write a privacy bill that’s just for websites, because you're talking about the delivery” of several kinds of services, Sepulveda said. But privacy rules are important, and congressional committees will have to study the matter, he said. “People need to feel like the Internet is a safe place for them to go.” It’s in industry’s best interest to improve privacy controls, said David Quinalty, an aide to Ranking Member John Ensign, R-Nev., of the Senate Communications Subcommittee. Congress “can help foster” industry discussions about best practices, but it shouldn’t write laws that could stifle innovation, he said.
Some members of Congress may be wary of spending additional money on broadband, said Republican aides at a Broadband Breakfast event Tuesday morning. The FCC’s National Broadband Plan asks Congress for $16 billion for a national public-safety network and $9 billion for a new Universal Service Fund emphasizing high-speed access. Aides from both parties called the plan a step toward broadband for all.
House Democrats endorsed the FCC’s National Broadband Plan a day before its official release. House Republicans gave conditional praise, saying they're watching closely. In an interview, Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., said he believes legislation will be required to satisfy the plan’s recommendations to revamp the Universal Service Fund, build a public safety wireless network, and identify lightly used spectrum.
The four co-chairs of the Congressional E-911 Caucus are introducing bipartisan legislation to upgrade 911 call centers nationwide and toughen penalties for states that divert 911 funds for other purposes. The bill also would move the national E-911 Implementation Coordination Office to the NTIA. Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and John Shimkus, R-Ill., introduced the 2010 Next-Generation 9-1-1 Preservation Act (HR-4829) in the House on Friday. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., plan to introduce a Senate version on Monday, said an Eshoo spokesman.
The FCC is reviewing what changes might make sense for the agency’s retransmission consent dispute policies (CD March 11 p8), Chairman Julius Genachowski told the Senate Commerce Committee. “The events of the last two or three months confirmed that this is a subject that should be looked at seriously,” he said in a hearing Thursday. He and Christine Varney, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department Antitrust Division, pledged to narrowly review on the merits Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal.
Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., of the House Communications Subcommittee is “very close” to completing his Universal Service Fund bill and hopes to take it to markup sometime this month, he told reporters Wednesday. “We are spending many hours every day working to finalize it” and “get the consent of stakeholders,” he said after a House Commerce Committee markup. (See separate report in this issue.) He wouldn’t say whether he will introduce the bill before or after the FCC’s National Broadband Plan is released. Boucher and the FCC share a goal to switch the fund to supporting broadband, but “the methodology may prove to be somewhat different,” he said. “We will review that broadband plan when it comes forward very carefully, and then we'll be making well-informed decisions as we pursue these goals together.” Boucher said he’s also working hard on his privacy bill, but action on that likely will wait until after USF. “We are working simultaneously on both drafts.” Boucher plans to release a discussion draft in the “near term,” but he wouldn’t specify a date. He said he wants privacy legislation to preserve “all the legitimate advertising practices,” adding, “Our goal is not to interfere with legitimate targeted advertising [or] behavioral advertising practices. Our goal is to give Internet users a greater confidence that their experience on the Web is secure.” Boucher declined to give an example of a legitimate practice before he circulates a discussion draft.
Retransmission consent is expected to come up at Thursday’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing on media competition and the Comcast-NBC Universal deal, Senate staffers said. The issue has heated up in Washington since last week’s dispute between Cablevision and ABC. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski was invited to testify at the hearing. Retransmission consent will “definitely” be discussed, a staffer said. Another noted that the hearing’s original title had referred to the Comcast deal, but it was changed this week to reflect a broader discussion of broadband and media competition. The shift increases the chances of a retransmission-consent discussion, the staffer said.
The House Commerce Committee unanimously approved an amended spectrum inventory bill (HR-3125) with stronger national security protection. The panel also Wednesday unanimously approved a bill (HR-3019) by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., that would streamline moving federal users off bands to be reviewed by a three-member technical panel reporting to the agencies. And the committee approved without objection an amended Caller ID spoofing bill (HR-1258) by Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., that would ban manipulation of Caller ID information. All three bills were reported to the full House.
House Republicans fear already-served areas have received broadband stimulus funding from the NTIA and Rural Utilities Service, they said in a Communications Subcommittee oversight hearing Thursday. And members from both parties questioned shortening the time frame for incumbents to protest applications to 15 days from 30. It’s “absolutely not the case” that NTIA is funding broadband overbuilds, said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling.